RE: Hierarchy/Hierarchies of Scientific Knowledge

The term emergent is heavy-loaded. Emergent from what? The purely physical? It seems to me that as you move "upward," one goes through differences in kind and not only in degrees. What poses the greatest problem for those who advocate the notion of emergent properties is how to explain the differences in kind that do occur in Nature. For instance, how can life, consciousness, and rationality emerge, say, from the purely physical seems almost illogical.

Moorad

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From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Keith Miller
Sent: Mon 5/8/2006 11:46 AM
To: American Scientific Affiliation
Subject: Re: Hierarchy/Hierarchies of Scientific Knowledge

Gregory Arago wrote:

        In the thread on emergent properties, the words 'hierarchy' and 'hierarchical' have come up. This seems to suggest something that comes before or after, below, higher or above, primary, secondary, etc. Could folks at ASA help by describing/explaining what kind of hierarchy or hierarchies are said to exist in scientific knowledge?

What I had in mind by my use of the term "hierarchy" was the movement from interactions of mater and energy at the atomic level (I suppose that quantum effects could be consider on their own separate level of explanation) to increasingly larger and more complex entities. Moving "upward" from the atomic level, there is the level of molecular interactions and biochemistry, then the level of the organism, the species, community, ecosystem, and Earth system. This is obviously not the only heirarchy that one could suggest.

Also, the different levels are not sharply defined or distinguished -- the boundaries are gradational. However, there are emergent properties that can only be discussed and understood within a particular level.

Keith

Keith B. Miller
Research Assistant Professor
Dept of Geology, Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-3201
785-532-2250
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
Received on Mon May 8 12:52:55 2006